If wind isn't the answer, fossil fuels are contributing to potentially dangerous climate change, and nuclear (that currently only provides a fairly small percentage of electricity) has huge financial and human cost when it goes wrong, it looks like the solution is a massive reduction in electricity usage.

Are people who are anti wind, campaigning for a massive change in lifestyle to protect the countryside they care about, and setting an example themselves?_________________John

OK, so if there is a long term climatic change that reduces levels of wind in the UK, we have to work with that. Let's see. For now, its reasonable to expect that we will be windy for more than the lifespan of a turbine. One year's data is not enough for determining a trend.

One nice thing about wind farms is that we can put them up and when we are finished with them we can quite easily remove them (and even recycle them I suppose).

However this report is from a campaigning group (John Muir Trust), rather than a group of scientists so I would take it with a pinch of salt.

One nice thing about wind farms is that we can put them up and when we are finished with them we can quite easily remove them (and even recycle them I suppose).

However this report is from a campaigning group (John Muir Trust), rather than a group of scientists so I would take it with a pinch of salt.

Yes, but who pays for the wind farm decommissioning? And this process will never restore the impact of pouring thousands of tons of concrete into sensitive moorland to make bases and roads for the windmills.

One of the reports are from Reading University (in the Telegraph article). The JMT is not the sponsor of Stuart Young's work; they're merely citing his report.

Rather than cutting consumption, I think we'll just escalate the dash for gas - that alone (as a switch from coal) has been shown to cut emissions of CO2 just as much as building wind fleets, and a great deal cheaper into the bargain. It's what Germany and Switzerland will have to do. The Germans will be able to get shale gas from Poland.

Last edited by An Inspector Calls on Mon May 30, 2011 1:26 pm; edited 1 time in total

IAre people who are anti wind, campaigning for a massive change in lifestyle to protect the countryside they care about, and setting an example themselves?

No, I'm campaigning for the more sensible option of designing our future power system such that it minimises damage to places like mid Wales, the Whinash Ridge, the Lake District, and so forth. If wind is so wonderful, build the windmills in the south east where they'd be close to the load centres. That would really be a smart grid idea!

Nowt wrong with escalating the dash for gas (to replace coal), but it'll only take us about 1/2way to where we need to be.

The calmer winters may very well be connected with sunspot cycles, but for all we know they may turn out to be connected with El Nin~o or the North Atlantic Oscillation, or they may just be completely random.

The advantages of building wind-farms in (some) places that aren't the South-East...

Lower wind speeds in the SE, but shorter transmission distance and thus lower grid losses. But then, the windfarm people don't really get charged connection charges. I do hope that's not another subsidy.

And then again, I wonder why they're trying to build at Den Brook dale?

The south east will do their bit with offshore wind, this will involves its fair share of substations etc. Transmission losses are I believe ~1-2 % in which case the lower windspeeds onshore in the SE won't be compensated for. If I'm wrong about that by all means say so.

So, for me its clear we need both onshore wind where its windy enough, and offshore wind as much as we can afford. I agree that more gas generation is preferable if it means we can stop burning coal completely on CO2 grounds. A splash of nuclear maybe but it will be interesting to see if the Germans can make a go of it without nukes.

The report said "with support from JMT" and I presume they had a role in commissioning it. The Telegraph are being a bit sloppy to suggest this is "metereologists say that....". I understand this Stuart Young consultancy is a regular anti-wind lobbyist so that is why I suggest to take what they say with a pinch of salt and watch out for the spin.

Regarding decomissioning of windfarms, this should be paid for by the operator like for all other energy sources. A lot cheaper and easier to do with wind turbines than for nuclear and others.

Its not very common for wind farms to be located on sensitive moorland. No one at the moment is suggesting to build windfarms in the national parks like the Lake District as you fear, Inspector. Whether that will ever become necessary, we shall see.

Yup, they've learned not to build on certain types of Peat soil (which can dry out) and they've learned to do EIAs first (to assess for birds, bats, etc). In short, erm, they've been learning. And, depending on one's priorities, it's a bit rich saying things like Whinnash (site within earshot of the M6 iirc) would "ruin" the Lake District, when there are things like Sellafield not that far away.

It's my contention that the Torygraph have been "got-at". One thing I did always like about them was their good science journalism. Seems now that's going by the board, which is a pity._________________Soyez réaliste. Demandez l'impossible.
StoriesThe Price of Time

"Yup, they've learned not to build on certain types of Peat soil (which can dry out)"

Well the most obvious example of that idiocy was the Lewis wind farm. They haven't learnt any lessons: the farm was simply blocked due to heavy opposition. It was the opponents who pointed out the risk (in part, supported by JMT). And the developers are still there, still trying to build on moorland that can dry out, but with a much smaller proposal.

There are no suggestions for any windfarms in the national parks (never said there was), but the Lake District is not defined by its national park. The proposals for Whinash, and Berrier were right on the doorstep of the national park. The Whinash area appears in two of Wainwright's guides (not the main Lakeland Guides). Berrier is about 8 km from the summit of Blencathra and would have sat right in the middle of the view across the Eden Valley towards Cross Fell. Whinash would have been visible from all the major summits on the skykline - even Pillar and Great Gable in the far west would have had a nice view. There are windfarms on the southern doorstep of the Lakes, at the bottom of the Duddon Valley. (Sellafield, which is hidden from all but a few western fells, merges into the coastal plane). One of the main reasons the Dales national park and the Lakes national park are being extended so as to abut in the Lune Valley is to fend off wind farm developers such as the Whinash Ridge thugs.

Transmission losses from windfarms in the SE? Transmissions losses from SE windfarms would be far lower than those from windfarms in the north west (~5 %) due simply to impedance losses increasing with distance. From the far north of Scotland impedance losses would probably reach 10 % (unless we all pay for an expensive DC link - another hidden subsidy on wind). So building windfarms in the SE might be an area of lower wind speeds and thus lower output at the windmill, but that loss will be compensated by reduced transmission losses.

And no, offshore wind in the SE does not count in my book as 'doing their bit'; I'll believe that when they build on Hampstead Heath. At the moment there are no windfarms in Sussex, Surrey, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire; Hampshire and Kent have one each (REF data). All this region has windspeeds similar to those on the north German plane so why don't these counties get on with it and see how the locals react?

I'd be in favour of more onshore wind in the south east if there is a reasonable amount of wind in some places. I am surprised though that the SE similar windspeed levels as northern Germany?

If transmission losses are as much as 10% from Scotland, this is higher than I had thought (the argument related to microgeneration has also relied on this). But since I'd like us to build as much onshore wind as we can, its not a big reason to avoid building turbines in some areas in favour of others.

Actually in my opinion its a shame we can't build turbines in national parks which tend to be among the most windy places. So you won't get me agreeing that its wrong to build them just outside national parks where (oh my) they can be SEEN.

"In general these full load hours are only achieved by [windfarms] at or near the German coast where the annual average wind speed at 10 m above ground is between 5.5 and 6.5 m/s. In the calmer coastal hinterland (inland category) as well as in the low mountain regions, the full load hours so far determined are clearly below these values."

5.5 to 6.5 m/S is the usual range of wind speeds in southern, lowland Britain - see candie's map. The only area of Germany where they achieve these windspeeds onshore is on the northern plane. So the Germans build in areas less windy than the south east of Britain.